EXCLUSIVE: Behind the Fight to Bring Aquaman to the Big Screen

Aquaman was always going to be one of the more difficult DC properties to bring to the big screen. The massive world underneath the ocean is strange, unique and completely original.

CBR got the chance to speak with DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and Aquaman screenwriters David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall about bringing the crazy world of Atlantis to the big screen, as well as the hurdles they had to overcome to do so.

Aquaman is, even within comics culture, often maligned as a joke. He’s either too powerful, too regal or too useless. Aquaman being adapted into a film has been used as a joke in the past. Even for comic fans, the prospect of Aquaman isn’t always something that generates excitement.

Speaking about being brought onto the project, Beall told a story about his initial excitement to write a different DC character.

“This was like 2014 or something, and I get a call," said Beall. "'Fasten your seatbelts, I got an assignment for you, I can’t tell you what it is.’ And I was like, they’re going to give me Batman. I was stockpiling comics… and then I get a text with a picture of Aquaman on it and I was like ‘Oh, fuck.’ Because at that point, I had not read Throne of Atlantis yet. I’d sort of fallen off after the Peter David run in the '90s. I think I had the reaction that a lot of the world did, of ‘wait they’re really going to do Aquaman?’ And then I remember being in meetings, and people would be like, 'what are you working on' and I’d tell them I was working on Aquaman. And they’d laugh."

“That’s what they said to me when I wrote the book,” said Johns. “They’d say, ‘what’s your new book,’ and I’d say I want to do Aquaman. And people said to me, in comics, ‘why are you going to waste your time with Aquaman?’ I’ve heard that a lot. Why are you going to waste your time on Booster Gold or the Teen Titans or anything. Aquaman was kind of the crème de la crème of those geek jewels. I’ve always loved the character and seen potential in the stories.

“People had an attitude about Aquaman, and I got notes on it. I’ll never forget, I wrote this first issue and he goes into a restaurant and sits down. People are staring at him, and he goes, ‘I’ll take the fish and chips’… I got a note from the publisher that said you can’t do that scene. ‘You’re going to ruin the character.’ And I said, ‘ruin the character?’ You got to address it. They said you can’t address what people make fun of him for, and I said you have to embrace it. That’s part of who the character has become, and that’s okay because it becomes part of their charm. Suddenly, Aquaman becomes the biggest underdog character in the DC Universe. You’ve got to, when you look at these characters, do it from an emotional point of view and a conceptual point of view. Because a guy who swims and talks to fish is cool, but how do you make that relatable? How do you make that a story?"

NEXT PAGE: Aquaman's MVP is Its Director, James Wan

When asked about how they decided on the kind of character they wanted to present Aquaman as on screen, all three were very up front about the importance of the New 52 relaunch is in the current direction of the character. “[Johns has] done a lot of the heavy lifting already,” said Beall.

“I did a lot of work revamping during the New 52 comics in 2011,” explained Johns. “Really distilling it down to [Arthur] being the son of the Queen of Atlantis and a lighthouse keeper. He feels because he’s from two worlds, he’s from no world. And that plays into Aquaman’s perception, I think, in animation and comic books.

"For a long time people just thought he talked to fish, which he does in the movie very well, and that he’s kind of an out of place superhero. And taking that viewpoint that a lot of people have on the character, and making it a part of his emotional journey, was really key. If you centralized it around that, then adding the other mythology of the seven seas and the Shakespearean side of his brother being full Atlantean and King Orm, and having both Arthur and Orm have what I think a lot of people have -- a simplistic view of another culture that is far away and mysterious and perceived as dangerous. Or antagonistic, at least. It all started from there. From that core emotional journey, [Arthur] going from someone who thinks he has no home... and because he’s of two worlds and two cultures, that he is actually the living bridge between land and sea. That was the goal of the comic books, and the 25 issues I wrote. And that spine carried through into the movie.”

On looking towards the future and how much easier it’ll be to explore this world now that it’s been formally introduced, all three were thankful of one man: Director James Wan.

“It’s great that [Wan] had that appetite and obviously the talent to do it right, because visually this movie is insane," said Johns. "You just can’t stop him. The way he envisioned the Trench, the Brine, all these other kingdoms, and Atlantis and Aquaman himself… it’s great that everyone worked together to create a film that was beautiful, and establish it all with a story that’s direct.”

“This was sort of the movie he was born to do,” said Beall, with Johnson-McGoldrick adding, “he could have done anything, too!”

But according to the three, Wan was so excited about the project that he would move around the conference room, acting out scenes and playing characters. It’s an enthusiasm that carries over from the comics to the script all the way to the film itself, and helps make Aquaman such a fun change of pace for the DC Extended Universe.

Directed by James Wan, Aquaman stars Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Amber Heard as Mera, Patrick Wilson as Ocean Master, Willem Dafoe as Nuidis Vulko, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, Temuera Morrison as Thomas Curry, Dolph Lundgren as Nereus and Nicole Kidman as Queen Atlanna. The film is in theaters now.